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Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden warned Thursday that Donald Trump’s behavior “legitimizes the dark side of human nature.” He made the remarks during a visit to Wisconsin, where he spoke by phone with Jacob Blake, a black man whose shooting by a white police officer renewed protests across the country against systemic racism.
For nearly 90 minutes after landing in the state, Biden and his wife, Jill, met privately with Blake’s father, Jacob Blake Sr, his mother, Julia Jackson, his brothers, and some members of his legal team in a room. at the Milwaukee airport. .
Blake, who according to Biden was released from the ICU, joined the conversation for almost 15 minutes from the hospital. Blake’s family said he is paralyzed from the waist down after police beat him seven times on the back while trying to arrest him last month in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
“He talked about how nothing was going to defeat him, how if he walked again or not, he wouldn’t give up,” Biden said of their conversation during a listening session with community leaders and two law enforcement officials, at Grace Lutheran Church in Kenosha.
The Blake shooting followed a summer of high-profile and often fatal encounters between police and black Americans, and made Kenosha the epicenter of the national debate on police brutality and racial injustice.
Biden’s trip to Wisconsin, his first since he became the party’s nominee, was designed to set a stark contrast to the president, who visited Kenosha on Tuesday. Biden said he was looking for common ground as Trump stoked the divide. Recalling Trump’s comments after the white supremacist violence in Charlottesville, when he said there were “very good people on both sides,” Biden claimed that the president was actively obstructing racial progress.
“No president has ever said something like that,” Biden said. “The generic point I’m making is that it’s not all his fault. But it legitimizes the dark side of human nature. “
Ignoring objections from local officials who feared his presence would inflame an already tense situation, Trump used the visit to amplify his tough message against crime and vigorously defend law enforcement, rejecting urgent pleas for reform of protesters. He never mentioned Blake’s name and instead focused on the street violence that has erupted alongside the peaceful protests, for which he blamed Democratic leaders.
Earlier Thursday, Trump’s campaign manager, Bill Stepien, called Biden’s visit inappropriate, accusing him of “injecting politics into a really serious situation that the president helped solve.”
At a news conference Thursday, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat who asked Trump not to come to Kenosha, said he would have preferred both candidates to stay away.
In a somber tone, Biden sat silently at the front of the church, listening to speakers, which included a local Black Lives Matter activist, a firefighter and a woman whose business had been looted.
In his comments, Biden condemned the acts of violence. “Regardless of how angry you are, if you loot or burn, you must be held accountable, period,” he said during his remarks at church. “It just can’t be tolerated across the board.”
But he also compared the current protests to the civil rights movement of the 1960s, presenting this moment as a national awakening that could turn the tide of centuries of injustice.
“We are finally at a point where we are going to address original sin in this country: slavery and all its vestiges,” Biden told attendees, all of whom, like Biden, wore masks and sat apart. “I cannot tell you that everything will be resolved in four years. But I can tell you one thing: it will be so much better. “
Before coming to Kenosha, Biden and Blake’s family discussed racial injustices in the police force, the reforms needed to address those issues, the candidate’s “plans for change”, and the impact of his selection of California Sen. Kamala. Harris, a black woman, to be her running mate, according to a statement issued by a family attorney, Ben Crump.
“The family was grateful for the reunion and was very impressed that the Bidens were so engaged and willing to really listen,” Crump said, adding, “It was very obvious that Vice President Biden cared as he extended to Jacob Jr . of humanity, treating him as a person worthy of consideration and prayer.
After church, the Bidens met with parents and educators in a backyard in nearby Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, to discuss the challenges of reopening schools amid the coronavirus pandemic.
